Technology's gee-whiz effect on education
Seema Singh -
Tuesday, January 06, 2009 2:53 PM
The Indian cabinet last week cleared the Rs 20,120 crore Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the gargantuan plan to universalize secondary education.
Last week the government also said it will implement the National Mission on Education through ICT at a cost of about Rs 4,612 crore over the remaining years of the 11th Plan. This is a suggestion from the National Knowledge Commission and aims at enabling students, even sitting at home, to consult teachers in any part of the country.
I am not sure if these programs have a meticulous execution plan, particularly on what technologies to use and how. Nevertheless, the great leveler that tech is, one hopes electronics, with context and right support, leaps out of fancy gadgets to actual classrooms.
It is for this reason that the international journal Science devoted its first issue of the year to technology and education. In the editorial, Editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts says: "We now recognize that we must look at the ‘art' of education through the critical lens of science if we are to survive."
As if looking though this lens, 1996 chemistry Nobel prize winner Harry Kroto from UK, has hosted this site at his Florida office - GEOSET (global outreach for science, engineering and technology) where he collects outstanding materials that aid teaching and learning. His conviction: only a charismatic teacher can stimulate students.
So what should we look for --software that can teach students how to write as Michael Jenkins, a language arts teacher at Estancia Middle School in New Mexico has shown using this tool? Or should we take recourse in video games to lure young minds to science/tech/engineering? Can gaming teach a thing or two to textbook writers, especially NCERT in India, on how to change passive, uncritical learning to active, critical, problem-solving methods?
Or is the Korean Cyber Home Learning System -- winner of the Unesco King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education and the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Learning Impact Platinum Award for the use of technology to enhance learning - worth emulating?
Emulate or innovate, but, like it or not, both teachers and students will have to squeeze in some bit of technology in their lives -- learning while gaming or vice-versa!